


Remember, Then Follow

by Politzania



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), not Steve Rogers Friendy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 21:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15058355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Politzania/pseuds/Politzania
Summary: After the Soviet bunker battle, Tony Stark focuses on what comes next.





	Remember, Then Follow

**Author's Note:**

> This has been hanging around my WIP Folder pretty much since CA:CW and was supposed to be the first chapter of a longer work, (hence the ambitious title) but the muse fizzled. I decided it stands alone well enough to satisfy the Free Space (A3) of my Tony Stark Bingo.

He watched them go, slowly and painfully, each supporting the other. Wielding the only weapon he had left -- his words -- Tony hit his target one last time; the shield falling with a hollow, ringing clang. He reflected that it would only take a moment to trigger the suit’s self-destruct sequence, ending it once and for all. But some wisp of self-preservation, of conscience, stayed his hand. 

“Boss? We’re at less than 2% power - survival mode initiated.” Never let it be said that a Stark didn’t learn from his mistakes; at least the ones that could be solved with technology. He’d be able to move while wearing the suit, at least for another hour or so. Tony had also set up his AI to maintain consciousness using nothing more than his own bioelectric field. As long as he was still in the suit and still alive, so was Friday. Mind you, neither of them was in very good shape at the moment. 

“I’ve got no eyes and no ears, Boss.” His AI sounded panicked; he hadn't intended to program that kind of emotional response but she learned quickly. 

“Can you hear me OK?” he murmured, hoping the subvocal electrodes were still in place. 

“Yes -- just not anything else. Those Brooklyn boys did a number on us.”

“That they did.” He sure as hell didn’t have any super-soldier serum working for him, and was still recovering from the dust-up in Leipzig, to boot. Between both battles, Tony was pretty sure he had a cracked rib or two, and his right cheekbone was quite possibly broken as well, to say the least of the damage to his arm. Blood, and bruises and bone-deep exhaustion. 

The suit was a shambles: not a single repulsor was in full working order, and pieces of the armor were digging into him painfully. He wondered, as he struggled to his feet, whether it would have mattered to Rogers if the reactor had still been a part of him, instead of just the heart of the suit. In the heat of the moment, he honestly wasn’t sure. 

The brawl had taken them down into one of the flame deflectors of the missile silo, which mean Tony had to struggle up a steep ramp to get back to the main level. This depleted the majority of both the suit’s energy and his own. He sank down on a bench and took a good look around. 

The place was obviously a Hydra tech stronghold. The tubes and the chair looked way too much like what Rogers had said they'd found in that Washington DC bank vault, that is before he and Wilson had smashed it to smithereens. At the time he’d thought it a waste of valuable tech research possibilities. Now he saw things a little differently. Five corpses stared out at him, daring him to delve into their mysteries, bring them back to life. And he’d be damned if part of him weren’t dying to give in and find out what made them tick. 

“Boss, I’ve triggered the homing beacon.” 

“Turn it off, Friday.”

“Have you lost your blasted mind?” 

“Listen, sweetheart -- I don’t want anyone -- the CIA, the FBI, MI6, the KGB, not even the friggin’ FDIC -- to have the slightest idea this place even exists.” 

“So how do we get out of here, other than with the beacon? It’s our best chance at rescue.” 

Rescue. That was one option. Pepper would be pissed, but she’d still don the armor he’d built for her, pulling his pull his ass out of the fire yet again. That said, Friday probably didn’t have the juice to send a suit-to-suit signal from the middle of goddamned Siberia. But this hellhole had power, and while his Russian was a bit rusty, he’d be a piss poor hacker if he couldn’t figure out how to jack into their system. Making sure he didn’t get himself jacked up in the process might be a bit more of a challenge. 

Tony was elbow deep in the guts of one of the consoles along the wall, cursing quietly and steadily at the cursory circuit diagram plastered to the inside cover when he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. With Friday’s sensors still offline, It was a bitch having to rely only on his own five senses. 

It had to be Rogers, back to finish off the job after all, once he’d made sure his Bucky was out of danger. Tony had needed fine motor control, so the suit gauntlets were retracted. Not that they’d make much difference; his former teammate had made it clear where his priorities lay. 

“If you’re back for more, Cap, I’ve got a few tricks left up the old armored sleeve,” he called out. It was mostly a bluff, but he’d managed to recharge the suit up to 5%, enough to shoot off the few missiles he had left. Not directly at Rogers, he supposed, but maybe collapsing a wall or two would knock some sense into him. 

“You would still do battle with your Captain, Tony Stark?” He didn’t recognize the curiously accented voice at first. When the figure stepped out of the shadows, it had been much closer than he'd realized, as the black suit had blended right into the dark. 

“He’s not my captain anymore.” Tony turned to face the king of Wakanda and leaned casually against the console to hide what he was doing. “And if you got to him and his buddy first, Your Majesty, I imagine you didn’t leave much more than scraps.” 

T’Challa removed his mask and set it aside. “I made an error in my target; and I have had enough of retribution. I pray you have had your fill as well.” He glanced around at the marks on the walls left by the repulsors; the equipment broken and scattered as collateral damage. “Perhaps you should have given more thought to the name you and your team assumed.”

“It made sense at the time, when we were fighting for the entire goddamned planet,” Tony shrugged in reply. “You know, the whole Battle of New York thing. Alien monstrosities pouring out of a hole in the sky, commanded by a god gone mad who’d just killed our friend. Or did news of that not reach Deepest Darkest Africa?” 

“Grief often drives men to do that which they ultimately regret. Whether it is a fresh loss or an old wound newly opened does not matter. I do not find fault with the emotions, only the actions that result.” 

“I guess magnanimity goes part and parcel with being royalty, doesn’t it?” Tony spat back. He paced restlessly around the room, tethered by the cable that he’d rigged to recharge the suit. 

T’Challa made no reply, and after a few moments of silence, Tony felt compelled to continue. 

“So, are you just here to lecture me, Your Royalness? Because I bet that costume of yours wasn’t designed for this climate and this place doesn’t have much in the way of central heating.” Neither did his suit at the moment; bouts of uncontrollable shivering were playing hell with the soldering work he had to complete. 

“You are a master of deflection and redirection, Tony Stark. No -- it seems my purpose here has changed once again. Is this the place where they housed the Winter Soldier?” T’Challa had been looking around the room with a detached curiosity. 

“One of several hellholes. There was a setup in DC, and maybe more. And apparently he wasn’t the only monstrosity that Hydra created -- though the not-so-good doctor put a bullet through these guys’ brains before we got here.” As he pointed towards the frosted-over tubes containing the bodies of the other Fists of Hydra, Tony’s stomach roiled at the thought of how neatly the trap had been set and how they had all walked right into it. 

His numb fingers lost grip on the screwdriver he was holding and it clattered to the floor. Tony bent to pick it up, and nearly passed out when he stood back up. But when T’Challa stepped forward to offer assistance, he waved him away. “No, I got this. I don’t need your help.” 

“You are a stubborn man who takes too much of the world on his shoulders, Tony Stark. I regret my next actions, but I must make amends.” Tony felt a sharp jab in the side of his neck, and then nothing. 

 

Warmth. The first sensation that reached Tony through the dark void was warmth. Scent and sound arrived next - disinfectant and electronic beeps and chirps; floor wax and muffled announcements. Touch was next: the cool sheet draped over him seemed to weigh a thousand pounds and the inside of his nose was painfully dry due to an oxygen cannula. 

“Could you leave that on? BBC America. Top Gear classic. My boss likes the original hosts. Well, except for Clarkson. He’d like to punch that bigoted jerk in the face.” Someone turned up the volume just enough for Tony to hear their commentary as the Stig took a lap around the track. 

God bless Happy -- he didn’t pay the man near what he was worth. Where the hell were they, anyways? The TV audio was in English, so that was a good sign. Tony scoured his memory - what was the last thing he remembered? The airport at Leipzig? Oh god - Rhodey. No, no, he was alive. Paralyzed but alive. They’d stabilized him, and he was already at Columbia. Pepper would surely have the best specialists in the world on call. 

He’d sent Parker home already, too; thank god he hadn’t been hurt as well. Tony had never thought that their confrontation would turn into such a nasty, brutal fight. He’d tried damned hard to make sure it didn’t come to blows, but the situation had gotten out of his control. 

The Raft? That was not supposed to happen. Not one of them belonged there, probably not even Wanda. But Ross had tied his hands; he barely kept his own ass out of custody. Tony knew Barton was never going to forgive him for exposing his family -- he honestly hadn’t meant for that to slip out. Just another good-intentioned paving stone on his own personal highway to hell. Damn thing must be a mile wide at this point. 

Tony remembered jamming the surveillance and talking to Wilson, then taking off for Siberia. Zemo had played them all for goddamned fools. But so much of that bastard’s plan had just been luck -- what if Rogers hadn’t told Wilson about the other super-soldiers? Or what if he hadn’t caught up with Barnes after he broke out? What if they hadn’t even been able to capture Barnes in Bucharest in the first place? 

So much coincidence; or a myriad of contingencies, all focused on bringing them together in order to tear them apart. Tony had always resented being manipulated; god knows it had happened enough. And a fresh log on the fire: the fact that Rogers knew what had happened to his parents and had said nothing. 

Yeah, maybe it wasn’t something that came up in casual conversation: “Hey, speaking of your dad, I think my childhood buddy might have murdered him and your mom in cold blood while acting as a puppet for an evil shadow regime.” But for someone who claimed to hate secrets, Cap sure had kept a pretty damned important one. 

The beeps and chirps sounded more urgent; not surprisingly, as memories of the recent past flooded through him. Tony heard a flurry of movement, and finally attempted to open his eyes. He flinched against the sudden brightness, seeing two or three figures hovering above him. 

“Mr. Stark? Are you awake? Welcome to Seoul.”


End file.
